All You Need is Love (& the Enneagram)

Here we are.

No matter how you slice it, we’ve made it (hopefully more than just intact) to a brand new year.  

It always amazes me that though certain seasons may bring their own version of emotional inclement weather, people and circumstances largely beyond our control, time gently holds us all to the same standard. You and I share the same amount of moments, minutes, and hours.  

In the midst of the storm, it sure doesn’t seem that way.  

Yet, steadily, we are all brought to the same here and now, if we choose to allow.

As you may have guessed reading the quote up above, this post is not going to be about New Year’s Resolutions. I swear those people got with the diet and exercise people and brokered a multibillion-dollar deal decades ago to keep us on a very frustrated treadmill.

Even the more subtle versions of resolutions always lose steam for me around early to mid February, not necessarily because I failed, but because the shine or need wore off, and I went back to my cozy old ways.  

I believe wholeheartedly that if your goal is success, whatever that may look like to you now, your best bet is developing life-giving habits over time instead of making ostentatious goals in abrupt or ambitious moments of inspiration.  Study the lives of the most successful, badass men and women throughout history, and you’ll likely find some pretty strong habits.

Again, this post isn’t about your most successful year in 2018—sorry, not sorry.  

The Queen, I mean Oprah, said it best:

“The key to realizing a dream is to focus not on success but on significance.  And then even the small steps and little victories along your path will take on greater meaning.”

You see, often the reason our goals and resolutions fall flat is because we are so obsessed with the end result, or the destination, that we miss the significance of the journey.  In doing so, we completely disconnect from who we are in the moment — our authentic self, who is deserving of  love and acceptance, no matter what’s been checked off the to-do list.

That sounds lovely... Okay, now how? How the heck do I simply turn on the love and acceptance switch? 

Hmm…nice try.  And oh how I wish there was a pill for that.  

But honestly I don’t.  Think about it, where would the fun be in simply meeting someone new, say a friend or love interest, and waving the wand of instant love and acceptance for them?  We would miss out on all the subtle, quirky nuances that draw us to them over time, not to mention the trust and connection that must be built by showing up, over and over again, and in doing so, gradually building up a picture of love and affection.  

In relationships, we observe people around us over time, and they either draw us to them or push us away.  

The same is true for your relationship with you.  Your significance isn’t how well you succeed over the course of time.  Your significance lies in all those glorious, unique things you bring to the moment, and how you choose to share them.  

In my experience, it’s much harder to do what I truly desire when I am my own worst enemy.  It almost always backfires.  

However, when I get out of my own way and start playing for instead of against my team, big things happen.  

Perhaps the greatest tool alongside therapy that has equipped me to do this is the Enneagram.  Over the course of the last 11 years, it has been a steady companion, giving me language to express lonely truths I thought only I had, as well as reasons for doing the clumsy things I so often do.  The Enneagram has gently shown me all the ways I wear false if not fashionable masks of personality to protect myself from being truly seen and perhaps rejected. She has shown me the great potential that awaits (when I do step out of my own way).

You may know about the Enneagram, and if so, I’m grateful.  It’s not just a buzz word or cool kid trend. In fact, it’s so ancient experts can’t quite nail down its conception. It’s stood the test of time, and I’m thrilled more and more people are bringing it into their homes, relationships and dinner conversations.

Let your progress in 2018 start by giving yourself the gift of connection.  Connect back to the little girl who only knows love and has no clue how to lie or be afraid or confuse success with love.  

If this feels wildly out of reach and too esoteric, don’t worry, you’re not alone, I’d love to support you in your desire to truly thrive.  2018 has given us a wide open road to explore the countless possibilities, and I’ve got a killer roadmap to get us there.  It’s time to truly connect back to you. 

You ready?

Love & Gratitude,

Katie

xoxo

P.S. If you are in the helping profession (or fascinated by the Enneagram and how to practically use it in your life), I’d LOVE to have you at my upcoming workshop The Enneagram in Action: A Training for Therapists and the Healing Arts Community, on January 19th! 

Click here to learn more!

Four Crucial Questions for A Beautiful New Year

One of my favorite pockets of time throughout the entire year is upon us; the week between Christmas and New Years.  I try my damnedest to carve out some “deep work” time as I call it, in order to clear the space, reconnect to presence after all the going and indulging, and map out a vision for the coming new year.  My inner dreamer gets to dance around boldly and color outside the lines a bit.  If I’m lucky, I try to take a whole morning or afternoon to do so.

Today, as you let the turkey and toffee settle, perhaps still surrounded by family in from out of town or friends who stopped by to say hello, I want to leave you with some food for thought as we head into these final days of 2017.

I’m struck by the power of habit or ritual as a pre-emptive tool to greet each new day with, as opposed to drastic measures and knee-jerk reactions.  Over time, good habits create this soft light in our lives that accentuate our potential and undergirds our desires with balance as opposed to extremes. 

I know, it’s so tempting to let it all hang out the last several weeks of the year only to justify it January 1 with a brazen New Year’s Resolution that, in my experience, lasts about two weeks if I’m lucky. 

With each passing year, as I show up for myself and my community, I’m learning something invaluable: extreme, reactionary quick fixes are often just detours. Connection is always king.

If you have battled discouragement in the past because your desire for self-improvement took a sharp turn south when the diet and exercise plan you spent a fortune on went bust four days in, this is for you. 

If you rock resolutions, more power to you and I’d love to shake your hand.  In my experience, they always end like a hot and heavy, short-lived relationship.  I like to call them “whoosh” relationships: they promise the sun, moon, and stars, and then Bam! Like a cotton candy sugar rush, they crash and burn when the lights go up and the curtain falls.  It’s like the jerk of whip-lash—the “whoosh” of a cold whip of wind.  

Interestingly enough, I think humans find extremes far easier than balance.  We like to react out of fear instead of responding out of desire.  Marketing moguls exploit this behavior big time, and anyway you slice it, they’re clever.  They know that people go off the rails a bit over the holidays and wake up January 1 with a foggy head and a few extra pounds.  Swooping in, they save the day with their slashed gym membership prices and 30-day cleanse program promising a new you in just one month.

We’ve been hooked.  When those dollars are spent and the motivation trails off the next afternoon, we go looking for another option, or some leftover peppermint bark, whichever comes quicker.  

The shame cycle’s begun again.  

Perhaps I’m cynical, or perhaps I’ve had LOTS of practice reacting out of fear and manipulation rather than choosing what will truly satisfy me from a place of mindfulness and connection.

*If you jump on my website, you’ll see a logo and the story behind it on the home page.*  My approach to therapy and coaching is built on relationship, as I believe that when we begin to soften and mend our inner dialog and heal our relationship with self, external pieces of life follow suit and eventually thrive as well.  It’s not magic, it’s a journey and one I’m very much still on.

Today, I want to invite you into deeper connection with you by asking four questions that will lay some groundwork for the edits, goals, and habits you want to see take root in your life in 2018.  These are adapted from one of my favorite podcasts “The Accidental Creative” —so good I had to share!  Being mindful of desires, feelings, and curiosities will take us much further than stringent rules and regimens we place on ourselves.  Without the “why” the “how” is obsolete.

I hope you’ll join me and carve out some well-deserved time to journal around the picture you’d like to build for the coming year.  Come back to it over and over again.  Realign with its truth or tweak it if you need to deviate from the course.  The possibilities are endless.

Here we go:

• What do you want to feel more of in 2018? (e.g., energized, awake, confident, accepted)

• Where do you want to go in 2018?  (This can be figurative or literal. e.g., I want to explore a new city, yoga class, or I want to go from full-time to part-time at work so I can spend more time writing)

• What do you want to learn in 2018? (e.g., I want to learn to play drums or I want to learn to meditate)

• What do you want to change in 2018? (Reminder: this is desire driven, NOT fear driven!  Approach this from a place of “I’m enough” rather than insecurity.  e.g., I’d like to build in more margin for rest and play into my life.)

I can’t wait to hear your feedback on this exercise! When we give voice to this stuff, it crystalizes in our bones a bit more.  Let’s ease into 2018, listening, noticing, and responding to its inviting call to action.  If you’d like some extra light for the journey ahead, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Happy New Year!

Love & Gratitude,

Katie

xoxo

Permission to Speak Freely

Dear Friend,

I hope this email finds you well.  With the hustle and bustle of the season, whatever shape this takes on in your world, all I could think about this week was gratitude for your presence here. 

I realize you may be traveling, or with family, or perhaps even taking on more work and commitments.  Schedules get thrown off and the faint whiff of structure and routine we may have acknowledged just got sucked right out the window.

I get it. I’m there too. So we’ll keep this one short.

Today I simply want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart.  Thank you for accompanying me on this journey deeper into desire, connection, and thriving.  I started this blog a little over two years ago not knowing anything about what a blog was or who the flip would even care to read it.  I really just wanted to voice some deep longings, observations, vulnerabilities, and proof that hope and healing are absolutely always within reach.  

I’ve shared parts of my story that have felt scary and dark.  I’ve been afraid that perhaps you would judge me or see me as unqualified and/or inadequate both as a therapist and a writer.  For all you enneagram nerds out there, I’ve carried the curse of the “four” that whispers the ever so sexy lie, “If they saw you and knew you for who you really are, they wouldn’t love you.” 

As my British friend Lynsey would say every time, “Bollucks!”

The funny thing is, the more I heard that lie, the more I knew what I had to do—lay it all out there, flawed, broken, and wildly imperfect. 

If this year has taught us anything, it has surely been the importance of using our voice even though there is great risk involved and no guarantee of being well-received or even heard for that matter.  

When we speak our truth, it sets a domino effect of courage in motion.

For me and so many, this is very much a journey of first finding our voice—finding our truth.

My prayer and desire is that our weekly conversations will serve as a safe space and subtle nudge for you to keep searching for and using that beautifully powerful voice of yours.  

You may think this is pointless or impossible.  I get it.  You’re busy, you’re taking care of other people, you’re covered up with responsibility, or maybe you’re simply too weary and broken to try.  

Keep searching.

You may fall prey to the lie you have nothing good to say and your story, your voice, doesn’t matter.

Keep speaking.

Along the way, someone may have even told you to stay small and keep very, very quiet.  

Louder. It’s in there, and it’s big.

Okay, so you’ve searched, found, and shared that wobbly, crackling first few words only to fall flat without a nod or reassuring smile to catch them on the other side.  No one cared.

Get back on the horse.  

Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly.  Anything worth saying bears repeating.  

You belong to you and your voice matters.  

You matter. 

Why?  Because you are here.  It is your birthright to have needs and desires and to voice those valuable messages to the world.  You’re worthy and you belong, just as you are.

The thing is, truth is born out of silence, stillness.  We must slow down enough to hear the soft, rolling nuances of our soul’s longing.  If this feels indulgent, then my gift to you this holiday season is a big fat permission slip to find the time you need to lean into that stillness and listen to the voice of desire longing to speak freely.  

What does she sound like?  What are her words?  What does she need?  

Oh I know she’s in there.  And she is lovely, indeed.

Thank you again.  We’ve journeyed through yet another amazing year and I’m so grateful you are here. Hold on tight for the next leg of the journey. It’s gonna be good.

Until then, have a peace & meaning-filled Holiday!

Love & Gratitude,

Katie

xoxo

Resilience - The Story of You

Every year around this time, I get a bit nostalgic, even sappy.  (Shocker.)

I start to scroll through all the memories, struggles, victories, heartaches, and lessons learned.  Without fail, the year at hand proves a very thought-provoking teacher.  Thanks to scarily intuitive portals, it’s hard to escape montages of these memories—hell, Facebook already made a highlight reel of them complete with a companion soundtrack to take us there. 

Throughout the bleakest years of my struggle with depression, my Dad always knew exactly how to encourage me.  He would take me to dinner and we would talk.  He knew good food and deep conversation were the way to my heart.  I suppose I inherited this from him.

He taught me how to zoom out and see the bigger picture as he’d remind me how far I had come—my winding story up until then.  He would stress that God didn’t bring me here to leave me here; no, God was far too clever for that.  He reminded me of my unique story and that despite the pain I was feeling at the moment,  I was being broken open and forever changed in a good way.  One day this might make more sense.  It didn’t then, but it sure does now.  

I’m not sure he used the word resilience, but now I know that’s what he meant: my willingness to show up, fall after fall, to the call of my life.  

I just looked up the definition of resilience and here is what Merriam Webster gives us:

1: the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation caused especially by compressive stress

2: an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change

I especially like the second one.  

Something 2017 has reminded me of in a convincing way is that change is indeed inevitable.  All forms of change, even positive, incurs a loss because when we embrace change, we must let go of something.  

We must grieve loss.  Loss doesn’t occur in a vacuum.  To let go is to change, even if it’s letting go of something harmful in order to experience something better. Whenever we embrace change, we must also grieve what’s been left behind.

As you look back at this fascinating year in your life, I wonder what you'll see?  What emotions bubble up to the surface?  How have you practiced resilience and embraced changed, as fragile as it felt? Did you grieve the losses brought about by change?

No, don’t get hung up on perceived success or failure, that’s entirely too pedestrian for our purposes.  We are talking about your becoming.  Becoming what?  Becoming yours—you belonging to you through the barren drought of testing, loneliness, and doubt. 

It’s about coming to love the quirky beat of your own drum.

I’m leaving you with this Brené Brown nugget of pure gold wisdom,

"True belonging is the spiritual practice of believing in and belonging to yourself so deeply that you can share your most authentic self with the world and find sacredness in both being a part of something and standing alone in the wilderness. True belonging doesn’t require you to change who you are; it requires you to be who you are.”

Resilience allows your sacred and most authentic self to shine through all those cracks you never knew existed, and in doing so, gives the gift of true belonging.  We don’t get there without a refiners fire to burn off the dull and rusted edges of fear we learned along the way.

Bravo, my dear.  You are here.  You’ve worked hard to get here.  You have a story to tell that may never be read by the masses, but it’s your greatest work of art and one no one can ever take it away.  

Own it. Tell it. Keep writing it.  

It’s high time to celebrate this beautiful story that is YOU.  

Love & Gratitude,

Katie

Advent of the Soul: Get Ready for Your Brightest Year Yet

When you get to where you’re going, where will you be?  

I ask myself this question often as I easily confuse busyness with productivity.  I imagine you fall into the same trap as well.  Consider this, how many times a week do you ask someone how they’re doing and they respond with a slight sigh, eye roll, and an arsenal of reasons there’s just not enough time in the day.  “Life is just so busy these days!”  I’m definitely guilty of it.  I tend to wear exhaustion proudly like a badge of honor just so you don’t have any qualms or confusion in your mind about my level of productivity. 

I’m pretty sure shame is the culprit here. Last year, I read Shauna Niequist’s book, Present Over Perfect, and was rocked to the core by her level of honesty regarding her addiction to productivity and responsibility.  

She shares,

“We all have these complicated tangles of belief and identity and narrative, and one of the early stories I told about myself is that my ability to get it done is what kept me around.  I wasn’t beautiful, I didn’t have a special or delicate skill.  But I could get stuff done, and it seemed to me that ability was my entrance into the rooms into which I wanted to be invited.”  

In my case, I find myself hustling for acceptance by constantly going, achieving, producing.  It feels really good, until the payoff just isn’t enough anymore.

We all do this to some degree.  There is a lack of perceived deficiency as well as a need for acceptance, so we buy into narratives of belief about ourselves that were validated by someone important to us at some point along the way. Eventually, subconsciously, these beliefs build out a life blueprint of identity.  I believe discovering and aligning with our truest self is absolutely crucial in order to thrive and throw off the thin storylines we’ve bought into. They don’t hold up anymore.

We must take time and space to ask ourselves this vital question: Where am I going? 

There’s no better time than now to ask.  Stop addressing those Christmas cards, just for a minute. Chances are, if they’re getting a card, they also care about your overall well-being.  

According to the Western liturgical church calendar, the season of Advent is upon us.  I’m not concerned whether or not you consider yourself a religious person or church-goer, what I am interested in is your desire to stay grounded and committed to a vision for your life that’s evolving— flourishing. 

Advent simply means ‘coming'. It’s an anticipatory time of preparation for hopeful things yet seen.  In church tradition, this thing is the birth of Christ, a savior.  It includes all these beautiful, sacred practices enrolling candles, wreaths, songs, smells, and colors.  I often attend an Episcopal church that’s super liturgical and relic-heavy.  They do ritual really, really well and I absolutely love it, largely because I need all the reminders I can get. Rituals create infrastructure and order within to practice life-giving reminders.   

You and I have the opportunity to apply these same rituals this season to the interior spaces of our lives and daily experience.  I call it the Advent of the Soul.  That’s a really woo-woo way of describing our own sacred processional of time and space leading up to the birth of unique dreams and desires for the coming year. The community we want to build, the business we want to start, the relationships we want to attract, the cities we want to explore, the joy we long to cultivate, and on and on. 

The cool thing about this process is just how much power unlocks as we tap into it and access its truth.  Other bonuses include: you don’t have to dress up, leave the house, or fight the cold of Sunday morning.  Traffic’s never an issue, oh, and the doors are always flung wide open, ready to welcome you in.  

This advent takes place in the most exquisite cathedral—your very own heart and it’s offered all day and every day, wherever you are.  Disclaimer: this largely depends on our decision to stay present and awake instead of checked out with Netflix, a vat of Chex Mix, and a tumbler of Chardonnay.  

Rituals are meant to ground us, and that’s exactly what I need this time of year: a strong tethering to hope and a steady guide into truth.  This ritual of advent locks into my favorite daily practice: writing.  Don’t worry; I’m not heaving more homework on your already crazy schedules.  This will only take ten minutes, (of course more if you’ve got it!) 

Answer these three questions:

1) What have you gained in 2017?  

2) What is your word?  

Pick one word that is meaningful and representative of this new season and write it down.  Take a minute to unpack the story behind that word.  For example, I spoke with a man the other day who described this heaviness he’d carried the past several months due to lots of family drama.  He desperately wanted to put that unnecessary extra baggage down and decided  “Levity” was his word for 2018.    

3) What narrative or belief are you willing to let go of that’s holding you back?

Write that sucker down and see what comes up.  Try not to judge it, just notice what’s there.  

Now commit to these truths, over and over and over again.  This is the stuff of that magical, sacred journey called rebirth— the Advent of our soul.  You will forget, stumble, and fall into those dusty dark corners of old familiar voices time and time again.  That’s not the point.  The point is you keep daring, keep reaching, keep walking, one foot in front of the other, into what will come.  It’s a courageous path to forge, and most settle for a lesser resistance.  

You, my dear, are not most.  

Love & Gratitude,

Katie